I Can
by BellatrixLestrangey
Summary: Femslash February 2020, Day 25: Sword. Mai gets stabbed and Azula has to help her.


It is only when the sword meets Mai's chest that Azula realizes how much she cares for the woman. She throws a furious bolt of lightning into the main who'd delivered the blow.

He drops in an instant.

"Mai…" Azula fives the woman's cheeks a few light slaps, trying to rouse her into alertness. "Mai, don't leave me again."

Mai mumbles something incoherent.

Azula cups Mai's face in her hands. It seems that they had only just made amends.

"You were fine the first time." Mai winced.

"I lost my mind, Mai." She reminds quietly.

Mai sighs. "Yeah, well, you won't be alone this time. You'll have TyLee and Zuko..."

"I want you." Azula replies. "I need you, Mai." She finds herself longing to be a waterbender so that she could mend Mai's wounds.

"You'll be fine." Mai assures her. She reaches out and brushes Azula's bangs aside.

But she doesn't think that she will be. If Mai dies now she knows that the image will never leave her mind.

The sword arcing through the air.

She is unable to act quickly enough.

That horrid wet squelch and a rush of blood.

Even if she lives, Azula thinks that the memory will continue to replay itself in her dreams.

"You all think that I'm stronger than I am."

Mai frowns, "don't start doing that…"

"I couldn't protect you."

"If I can't protect myself then I can't expect you to."

That is exactly how Azula imagines that it doesn't work. "I should have been able."

Mai draws a shuddering, struggled breath and Azula's unease grows deeper. She coughs and a bubble of blood seeps through her lips. "Don't leave me Mai. I…" she hesitates. "I love you."

"Oh, spirits! Seriously?" She gives a choking laugh.

Azula's cheeks burn.

"You waited until _now _to say that?"

Azula swallows, she should have mentioned sooner.

Should have, should have.

There are so many of those.

And there will only be more if she can't get herself together and allows herself to go weak and useless.

Abruptly, she pulls her hand out of Mai's and scans her surroundings.

"Do you have any darts that aren't laced?" Her voice is much shakier than she would have liked.

"I have three that I didn't get around to poisoning." Mai responds weakly.

"Give them to me."

Mai slips them from her sleeves.

Azula breaks the needle off and rips a seam from her robes. "Try not to move too much."

Mai clenches her teeth at the needles first bite. Azula musters as much of her cold apathy as she can manage. By the eighth stitch, Mai is pleading with Azula to just stop and let her go.

Seeing and hearing so much emotion and torment from someone so normally deadpan has Azula tensing further.

She focuses on the moment that Mai had left her for Zuko. Left her alone, abandoned, and with the sting of betrayal. Dwelling on it until she has reduced Mai to nothing but that one moment. Allows herself to simmer in her former hatred.

She, for a time, can ignore the woman's pained requests.

"There's something wrong with you!" Mai accuses.

She almost drops the needle.

**.oOo. **

Azula keeps her distance. Mai had looked at her with such rage and hatred. Maybe she had no right to force her to endure that. I

Was it not her right to choose death over suffering?

But Azula likes to think that, that had been the pain talking.

Still she can't put aside her guilt.

This is what she has been reduced to; an awkward, guilt-riddled mess. She rakes her hand through her hairline.

"Mai wants to talk to you." TyLee says.

Azula wanders into the infirmary.

"I'm the one who got impaled, so why are you the one who looks so rough?"

"I haven't slept since it happened." Azula admits. "It comes back in my dreams, just like I thought it would." It among other memories that she can't seem to suppress.

"At least you didn't just sit there and cry about it." Mai shrugs. "You did something."

But she had come close to just giving up. Precariously close.

"You're angry with me." She says flatly.

"Why do you think that?"

"You asked me what was wrong with me."

Mai cringes, she knows that she had it a raw spot. "I wasn't thinking straight." She pauses. "You weren't either; I mean, you told me that you loved me."

"I was." Azula refutes. "I was thinking straight. For once. I do love you and that's why I had to save you." She pauses. "Even if you can't love me, I had to save you."

Mai rolls her eyes. "Is everyone in your family so dramatic? I can love you, Azula." She takes her hand. "You're aggravating to be around sometimes and you're very hard to deal with, but I've done it since we were kids. I can love you."

Azula squeezes her hand. "Thank you."


End file.
